About your RO - Jo Stockwell
Forum username: ROJO
Profile:
I live in Brightlingsea, a small coastal town in Essex with my husband Gerry and my daughter, Ellie and my son Ben.
In November 2009 after months of searching, Gerry managed to find a salvage TVR and bought it whilst I was out shopping. I was rather surprised when I returned home as I didn’t actually know he was going to buy one (I thought he was just looking). We made a make shift garage in the garden and Gerry, Ellie and Ben spent from December until May in the garage every spare minute of the day and night.
When the car arrived it didn’t really have a front and I wasn’t too sure, I didn’t really know a lot about TVRs, but it had been Gerry’s dream to own one. When I looked at it I thought it looked a bit of a mess and was worried that it couldn’t be put right but I was wrong it turned out lovely in the end and the transformation when the car came back out of the garage was quite amazing.
We joined the club in December and Gerry phoned the RO who arranged to take us to the meet at the Forresters in February. We were really surprised how friendly everyone was and had a lovely afternoon, looking at all the TVRs. I was quite emotional at the site of all the TVRs coming down the drive and from that moment on became quite excited at the prospect of one day being in our own TVR.
The car was ready at the beginning of June and as Ellie had done the majority of the work on the car with Gerry, he took her in the car to the club and I followed behind with Ben, who was taking videos and pictures. We had a smashing time at the club and then the next week went to the Hylands House car show. During the summer we exhibited the TVR at Walton car show, Clacton Carnival car show and in September our first Brightlingsea car show. We also went out on lots of day trips and had a great time and had lots of people coming up asking all sorts of questions about the car.
Pauline approached me in December to ask if I would like to become the new RO for Mid Essex, I had enjoyed organising those local car shows and I know that all the members are very friendly and all willing to help organise events, so I thought “Why not, lets give it a go”. Also, with the help of John and the three Amigos (and Pauline has promised she will be on hand to help with any problems) the club will be able to run as well as it has under Pauline’s wing, I am hoping that if any of you have any ideas for new events they can be discussed at the meetings and hope we all have a fun year.
Deputy RO: Alex Wager
Forum username: waggy
Profile:
My earliest memories of TVR’s are from when I worked in the early 90’s as a BT engineer in the city of London, I used to park my van in the basement car park of one the big trading banks, the stockbrokers used to frequently drive around in TVR’s. It was always easy to tell when a Griffith started up and drove out of the car park as the whole building used to shake from the loud V8 engine; it was music to my ears. From then on I always dreamt of owning a TVR.
Fast forward 10 years and I was fortunate enough to start looking for a TVR Griffith of my own, after viewing a couple in Essex which were not in good condition and too expensive, I noticed one for sale on the TVRCC website,it was located in Surrey and I arranged to view it. We made our way to the owner’s house and drove into a very attractive courtyard, there sitting in a large garage was a bright red TVR Griffith. The owner of the car was a lady called Lisa, she explained that the car was previously owned by her friend Bob Mortimer who bought it for his wife, but as it didn’t have power steering she rarely drove it. Bob kindly gave the TVR to Lisa as it was only sitting in his garage gathering dust. The car had been sitting there for 6 years so Lisa arranged for it to be re-commissioned by Gatwick TVR at a cost of £3600. After 2 years of driving it Lisa decided to put it up for sale, I test drove it and it felt like a new car, furthermore it had only done 24k miles. At Lisa’s house we noticed photos of her wedding, the photos featured Radio presenter Chris Evans as the best man and it then occurred to me that we just met Lisa and Dan McGrath. Dan McGrath was the sound man on the Big Breakfast with Chris Evans and was also on his radio one breakfast show. I used to listen to Chris Evans on my commute to work and he regularly used to say “Dan, Dan the soundman when are you going to marry Lisa !”
When we picked up the car (couldn’t sleep the night before with excitement!)and sorted the finance, Dan showed me his music studio where he writes theme tunes, he actually wrote the Strictly Come Dancing theme tune.
That was 2004 and I’m still driving the Griffith today.
Profile:
I live in Brightlingsea, a small coastal town in Essex with my husband Gerry and my daughter, Ellie and my son Ben.
In November 2009 after months of searching, Gerry managed to find a salvage TVR and bought it whilst I was out shopping. I was rather surprised when I returned home as I didn’t actually know he was going to buy one (I thought he was just looking). We made a make shift garage in the garden and Gerry, Ellie and Ben spent from December until May in the garage every spare minute of the day and night.
When the car arrived it didn’t really have a front and I wasn’t too sure, I didn’t really know a lot about TVRs, but it had been Gerry’s dream to own one. When I looked at it I thought it looked a bit of a mess and was worried that it couldn’t be put right but I was wrong it turned out lovely in the end and the transformation when the car came back out of the garage was quite amazing.
We joined the club in December and Gerry phoned the RO who arranged to take us to the meet at the Forresters in February. We were really surprised how friendly everyone was and had a lovely afternoon, looking at all the TVRs. I was quite emotional at the site of all the TVRs coming down the drive and from that moment on became quite excited at the prospect of one day being in our own TVR.
The car was ready at the beginning of June and as Ellie had done the majority of the work on the car with Gerry, he took her in the car to the club and I followed behind with Ben, who was taking videos and pictures. We had a smashing time at the club and then the next week went to the Hylands House car show. During the summer we exhibited the TVR at Walton car show, Clacton Carnival car show and in September our first Brightlingsea car show. We also went out on lots of day trips and had a great time and had lots of people coming up asking all sorts of questions about the car.
Pauline approached me in December to ask if I would like to become the new RO for Mid Essex, I had enjoyed organising those local car shows and I know that all the members are very friendly and all willing to help organise events, so I thought “Why not, lets give it a go”. Also, with the help of John and the three Amigos (and Pauline has promised she will be on hand to help with any problems) the club will be able to run as well as it has under Pauline’s wing, I am hoping that if any of you have any ideas for new events they can be discussed at the meetings and hope we all have a fun year.
Deputy RO: Alex Wager
Forum username: waggy
Profile:
My earliest memories of TVR’s are from when I worked in the early 90’s as a BT engineer in the city of London, I used to park my van in the basement car park of one the big trading banks, the stockbrokers used to frequently drive around in TVR’s. It was always easy to tell when a Griffith started up and drove out of the car park as the whole building used to shake from the loud V8 engine; it was music to my ears. From then on I always dreamt of owning a TVR.
Fast forward 10 years and I was fortunate enough to start looking for a TVR Griffith of my own, after viewing a couple in Essex which were not in good condition and too expensive, I noticed one for sale on the TVRCC website,it was located in Surrey and I arranged to view it. We made our way to the owner’s house and drove into a very attractive courtyard, there sitting in a large garage was a bright red TVR Griffith. The owner of the car was a lady called Lisa, she explained that the car was previously owned by her friend Bob Mortimer who bought it for his wife, but as it didn’t have power steering she rarely drove it. Bob kindly gave the TVR to Lisa as it was only sitting in his garage gathering dust. The car had been sitting there for 6 years so Lisa arranged for it to be re-commissioned by Gatwick TVR at a cost of £3600. After 2 years of driving it Lisa decided to put it up for sale, I test drove it and it felt like a new car, furthermore it had only done 24k miles. At Lisa’s house we noticed photos of her wedding, the photos featured Radio presenter Chris Evans as the best man and it then occurred to me that we just met Lisa and Dan McGrath. Dan McGrath was the sound man on the Big Breakfast with Chris Evans and was also on his radio one breakfast show. I used to listen to Chris Evans on my commute to work and he regularly used to say “Dan, Dan the soundman when are you going to marry Lisa !”
When we picked up the car (couldn’t sleep the night before with excitement!)and sorted the finance, Dan showed me his music studio where he writes theme tunes, he actually wrote the Strictly Come Dancing theme tune.
That was 2004 and I’m still driving the Griffith today.